Testing A Hypothesis
by DaughteroftheOneTrueKing
Summary: Fleur comes up with an idea to pass the Teiwizard Tournament


**AN: Hi All! So, I've joined The Houses Competition at the bequest of the lovely Verity! This is round two, and I'm in the Charms position on the Lions team. This is my drabble story, and the prompt I chose is (emotion) perplexing, and I hope you like it!**

**Word Count: 936**

Fleur Delacour sat staring at the enormous golden egg she had retrieved from the dragon last month. It had been a challenge, especially as she hadn't learned of the true nature of the task until the day before. Her Entrancing Charm had done pretty well, but it had caused her skirt to catch on fire, and she had some severe burns. Since then, she'd tried everything she could to make the egg reveal to her its clue, but all it did was shriek at her. She'd tried various spells, yelling at it, and throwing it at her dormitory wall, and yet it remained as stubborn as ever. It was extremely perplexing, and as much as Fleur liked solving mysteries, she wanted this one to simply go away.

According to Mr. Bagman and Mr. Crouch, this was a clue for the second task of the tournament, but she had no idea what it could mean. She didn't take much stock of what Mr. Bagman had said, he seemed like such a buffoon, but she thought Crouch had given accurate information. She had opened it several times, but the shrill screaming was so awful she'd always close it quickly.

Her friend Juliete had suggested it could be a banshee, as they were the most well-known creature that had anything to do with screaming. They'd covered how to overpower banshees in their classes, she could cover that. The only problem with that would be moving fast enough.

Etienne had suggested, rather fearfully, that it could be a dementor, since they often cause people to scream. Fleur hoped not, as she had never gotten the hang of the Patronus Charm and all she was usually able to produce was thin vapor instead of her full corporeal form of a kite. If that ended up being the case, she would have to get very good at them, and fast.

Even after a month, she hadn't found a thing that could help her. Hogwarts' library was quite impressive (though not as extensive as Beauxbatons), and she'd combed through the sections on everything from creatures and plants, to jinxes and curses, and found nothing pertinent.

Growing tired of simply staring at the clue with no idea how to solve the problem it presented, she picked up the novel she'd borrowed from the library just that afternoon. _Untested Waters _had been recommended by Etienne as a fun read, and she decided to try it, even though she rarely read fiction — it could get her mind of things.

Reading the jacket cover, she saw that it was about mermaids… the thought hit her like a bolt of lightning. Could mermaids make such a sound? But how would she be able to understand what all the shrieking was actually about? As of that moment, that's all it was. There had to be a simple solution to the problem that she had.

Fleur thought through the options carefully. She was very practical, and always thought through every contingency just in case. The first option would be to look for a book on translations. There weren't any words in the screeching, but maybe there was some kind of translation available.

Another option was to place the egg in the water. Since mermaids were aquatic, they could possibly have a language that could only be understood underwater.

Deciding that putting the egg underwater was the best bet, and the quickest to test, she gathered the egg, a towel, and some fresh clothes and headed through the Beauxbatons carriage to the baths.

The baths at Beauxbatons Academy were quite opulent, but those aboard the carriage were quite nice as well. Tiled from floor to ceiling, the whole place was filled with tubs that, with a touch of your wand, would adjust to any setting that you wished. Finding an empty tub, she filled it with warm, lemon-scented water, and after undressing, slid into the steaming water.

Opening the egg, she heard the screeching once more. She had a moment of doubt. _Is this really the right thing? _But she decided that it couldn't do any harm, and so pushed it underwater. The shrieking died, and a songlike tone floated from the egg. She was correct! Feeling a sense of great accomplishment, she slid her head underwater so as to hear what it was saying.

_Come seek us where our voices sound_

_We cannot sing above the ground._

_And while you're searching, ponder this_

_We've taken what you'll sorely miss_

_An hour long you'll have to look_

_To recover what we took…_

_Past an hour the prospect's black_

_Too late, it's gone, it won't come back._

Gasping, Fleur rose to the surface of the tub for some air. She had done it! She had figured out the clue to the second task. Someone was going to take something precious from her, and she'd have to go into the lake and get it back from the mermaids within an hour. But what would it be? And how in Merlin's name was she going to be able to survive long enough underwater to even complete this task?

Now she had another monumental task ahead of her: figuring out a way to breathe underwater. Being quarter Veela wouldn't help her in this as it had helped her avoid more injuries than just her burns in the first task. Veela were creatures of the sky, not water, so she had no advantage here.

Fleur knew exactly what her next step was going to be: back to the library. She needed to do more research to find out how to survive underwater for an hour.


End file.
